Monday, August 30, 2010Titans vs Carolina Broadcast.
Saturday evening, I tuned in to watch the Titans take on the Carolina Panthers in one of the dullest pre-season games I've ever witnessed.

Sure, the Titans had a short week, playing Monday night at home and scrimmaging Wednesday against the Cardinals, but that still doesn't excuse how just dull as dishwater the game was at times. I will admit that our "no name" defense looked impressive at certain points in the first half, but that's really about all there was to really sustain my interest in the first half.

Of course, part of this wasn't helped by the fact that the game was shown locally on channel 2. Having access to the NFL Network and their rebroadcast of every other pre-season game taking place has given me a severe case of pre-season broadcast envy. It seems like every other pre-season broadcast in an NFL city borrows the graphics, look and feel of their network partner for broadcasting the game. If it's a FOX station, you get the Fox graphics, look, feel, etc.

And then there's Nashville, where the Titans game are shown on our ABC affiliate. As you may know, ABC doesn't have a broadcasting deal with the NFL and it looks like ESPN isn't willing to share the Monday Night Football graphics and/or look and feel with WKRN. Watching the game Saturday, it didn't feel too far removed from the broadcast of high school football up a few notches on the cable dial on CSS.

It wasn't helped by the broadcast duo we had in the booth. Eddie George did a lot of great things as a Titan, but his work in the broadcast booth Saturday night was sub-par.

I'm sure had the Titans been tearing it up on the field, I might have been more willing to overlook or forgive these perceived shortcomings. But since the game wasn't anything to write home about, these things just stood out even more like a sore thumb.